Arthur Fleck is all out of jokes in Todd Phillip’s dark but brilliant follow-up to 2019’s smash hit
By James Kent
I can’t say I was looking forward to seeing “Joker: Folie à Deux.” I thought director Todd Phillips and co-screenwriter Scott Silver said everything they wanted to say about anti-hero Arthur Fleck the first go-around. After five years, what prompted Phillips to give audiences more of Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning portrayal of the familiar DC comic-book villain? Phoenix and Phillips’ take on the character people thought they knew was so singular, so different, so out there, so misunderstood, that the mere fact both rejoined forces to tell another chapter was reason enough to pique my interest. The knowledge that this sequel was also a musical? Now, they had my attention.
Gussied up in a marketing package by the film’s distributor, Warner Brothers, in a big-budget $200 million price tag, complete with multiple scenes shot with IMAX cameras, this film beckoned my oldest son and me out of Vermont to travel over to Massachusetts for a screening at the gigantic IMAX screen in Reading, Massachusetts. By the time we were in our seats and the lights went down, roughly 40 people were in attendance.
Why all the ‘no-shows?’ Was it due to critics universally panning the sequel? Was it the rapid-fire word-of-mouth from social media from the hard-core comic book movie fans who saw the film opening night and hated it? Was it that people heard the sequel was a musical, and nothing scares filmgoers these days more than watching characters singing on screen? How could a movie whose predecessor grossed a billion dollars at the box office, earned 11 Academy Award nominations, and won two five years later would garner a measly forty people to see the sequel opening weekend?
I’ve read some of the critical pans and adverse online fan reactions. Based on the movie I watched on Saturday, I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m a bit puzzled. I’ve noticed how comic and superhero movies get judged and reviewed through a different critical lens from other films. It’s as if they are critiqued not on their merits, worth, or lack thereof but on how well they adhere to the standards superhero/comic fans deem their worthiness. I find many critics give a pass to the nonsensical plot devices, lack of accountability to the loss, destruction, and mayhem caused by the action up on the screen, or the willingness to accept shoddy CGI effects because—well, they are a comic book movie, and we don’t want to ride them too hard—fans could get upset. Perhaps this is why many film critics found 2019’s “Joker” refreshing. It was something different. It had a gritty realism mixed in with its fantasy. Audiences and comic book fans seemed to enjoy that too, although the reasons for this may be questioned, especially in light of the hostility pointed in its sequel’s direction.
While many saw in the original “Joker” a potential new type of origin story for a favorite Batman foil, I saw the film in a different light. The first go-around existed as much in Fleck’s head as in any real-world Gotham setting. Fleck is an unreliable narrator, and by the end of the first film, rather than see the beginnings of the violent merry prankster who will soon turn Gotham on its head, I saw a violent man struggling with mental illness, who may have faceted together a narrative based on the influence of movies and shows he’d watched, as any valid marriage to comics or movies so many fans adore. I felt very much alone in that opinion, but this second installment provides me with some validation that contradicts what many fans might have hoped.
The sequel, which avoids the ramped-up pathos and revenge climax that, perhaps, people were looking or hoping for, instead dials in on Phoenix’s Fleck’s fragile split psyche. And this struggle becomes the primary impetus of the film’s plot—how crazy is Arthur? Does he have two distinct personalities? Which one will dominate over the other? Will the real Arthur Fleck please stand up and be heard? It’s an exciting prospect that director Phillips challenges audiences for two hours and 20 minutes. It’s not a pleasant experience, as we, the audience, are confronted with Arthur’s past actions, as is he, and we must ask ourselves—were we ever okay rooting for this villain? And is Arthur an actual villain, or was it the hordes of Joker worshippers in the first movie that created him? Do we prefer our villains come equipped with all the flash and zip of a jokey one-liner and flair of over-the-top personality vs. the reality of a fractured human looking for empathy, understanding, and wrestling with the impact his actions brought to others? These are weighty concepts, and Phillips is more interested in giving us that film than having Phoenix escape from Arkham Asylum and wreak havoc on Gotham City with a lively sidekick, Harley Quinn.
I forgive anyone thinking the title of this film, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” and its translation, “Madness of Two,” meant that this movie would be all Phoenix and Lady Gaga, but they’d be wrong. Gaga’s Lee Quinzel is a sociopath with a pretty healthy borderline personality disorder in the movie, but she isn’t the reason for the tagline. As audiences soon discover, Gaga is more of a supporting character here. The two sides of Fleck and their madness are the stars.
What about the musical aspect of the film? Yes, musical sequences are sprinkled throughout the movie, although they never overtake the film. They exist in the tradition of “Theater of the Mind,” serving as a gateway into the fantasy world that Phoenix’s character lives in, with songs and visual cues from movie musicals we imagine Fleck watched during his loneliness. An overhead shot of Fleck walking through an outside prison yard, surrounded by guards holding umbrellas in the pouring rain, transforms into fantastical multicolors straight out of “Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” It’s his escape from the brutality of Arkham Asylum, the hope of love’s potential in fellow inmate Gaga’s Quinzel, and the struggle between himself and his alter ego, Joker. In a sly nod to the comic book world where this story exists and takes no shame in mocking from time to time, early in the film, guards drag an emaciated Phoenix along the halls of Arkham Asylum and through an entranceway labeled B Ward. Those of us guilty-pleasure fans of the ‘60s television show version of “Batman” may catch the Burt Ward/Robin call out here.
Through the eventual courtroom trial of Fleck for his crimes in the first film, we get the Joker character so many fans love and seem desperate to want from movie, but the reality of these crimes starts breaking down the walls and facade of this famous clown. Perhaps we don’t want to think too hard about the fact Phoenix’s character mercilessly blows away Robert DeNiro’s talk show host on live television in the third act of the first movie. Certainly, Phoenix’s Fleck does not want to confront such realities.
In one of the film’s best scenes, Fleck, acting as his own attorney in full Joker costume and makeup, must cross-examine a witness to his crimes, Gary Puddles. Puddles, played with tremendous power by actor Leigh Gill, provides something missing from so many of these cartoon action films where a nasty comic villain, whose only justice comes at the hand of a costumed superhero, mows down scores of people, leaving the living victims to remain nameless. On the witness stand, Puddles recounts in harrowing detail how Fleck’s Joker may have spared his life because Puddles was kind to him, but making Puddle a witness to a gruesome homicide ruined Puddle’s life anyway and provided trauma he cannot shake. It’s when Fleck and Joker begin migrating back into a singular personality, and the weight of responsibility overtakes him.
The movie is a dazzler in terms of the visual power of the medium. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher utilizes the full-screen IMAX aspect ratio to great effect, letting viewers observe the pain baked into Phoenix’s skeletal face, every line and crevice providing an intense, intimate experience that comes with seeing the movie on such a large canvas. Lady Gaga continues her winning streak as an actor. This film is her third big-screen appearance, behind “House of Gucci” and “A Star is Born,” and she doesn’t disappoint. Her Quin is the surrogate for all fanboys wanting to see Phoenix’s Joker unleashed—she does, too. And in one of the film’s final cruelties, when Phoenix’s Fleck realizes he doesn’t want to be a “Joker,” Quin rejects him. She wants the charismatic villain, not the ordinary man starving for love. As for Phoenix, he’s as good as he was in the first movie, but admittedly, there isn’t much new ground for him to cover.
This film is far different from the type of sequels one might expect, and I’m certain executives at Warner Brothers were scratching their heads when they got to see it. However, it does serve as a cohesive companion to the first film in terms of look, feel, and thematic devices. There’s no cool Joker mobile, flashy minions, or crazy plot to blow up Gotham City with a caped crusader waiting to swoop down and stop Joker and Harley Quinn. There are no multiverses with a CGI Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson battling it out for one-liner supremacy. No, what we get is a bookend to Todd Phillips’ one-man show who, as it turns out, was never the Joker you thought he was, but who Phillips always said he was. Go back and rewatch the first film after seeing this one, and you might be surprised what you missed. Remember how critics and audiences hated “Blade Runner” when it first came out in 1982, and then how everyone called it a masterpiece 10 years later? I’m not saying “Joker: Folie à Deux” is that, but I do believe in a few years, people will look at this film with a different lens and realize it was more than just a sequel, and when they start to peel away the layers this movie offers, they may find it’s quite a brilliant work.
James Kent is the publisher’s assistant at the Mountain Times and the co-host of the “Stuff We’ve Seen” podcast at stuffweveseen.com.
